What Valor's Epoch is

Valor’s Epoch is a fifth-edition game of hex combat set after a god falls silent. A three-seat Guild party walks a woodland node, spends movement cell by cell, and settles each job with the 5.1 rules.

The rules come from the System Reference Document 5.1, licensed CC-BY-4.0. Valor’s Epoch isn’t affiliated with Wizards of the Coast, and it doesn’t use the 2024 revision — no weapon masteries, no updated class chassis. Cover, high ground, and every core verb (Dash, Disengage, Hide, Dodge, Ready, Help) work the way 5.1 already defines them.

Three seats

The starting party is a Champion fighter, a Life Domain cleric, and a wizard.

The fighter holds the front hexes: a fighting style, Second Wind (1d10 plus level, once per short rest), and Action Surge and Extra Attack as the party levels up. The cleric prepares Bless and cure wounds, wears heavy armor, and gains Channel Divinity at second level. The wizard casts from Intelligence, holds concentration on Constitution, and stays out of melee.

The player controls the fighter. The cleric and wizard act on their own unless a player takes the reins.

The woodland

“Iron,” here, means the grove’s wildlife — slimes, needlers, ember mites, and worse — not a rank a party climbs. A Guild contract never names the creature up front. It describes a symptom, like a thick well or a puncture with no visible weapon, and the party finds out what caused it.

Playing it

Four contracts play free in the browser, no account required: a well, a brushline, a hollow, and a source below a stair, climbing from a party’s first spell slots to Extra Attack and a CR 5 boss. Nothing from a browser sitting is saved.

The full campaign — Guild hall, contract board, hearth rests, a party that keeps its scars between jobs — is in development. It runs on the same combat client as these four contracts; the hall and onboarding are just skipped here so a fight can start right away.